This Place is Dead so I Blog

Well, I'm not sure how to "red" something unless I'm coloring it in or bleeding on it. Your computer monitor must look amazing under a flourescent UV bulb at any time I'm not posting.

 

Because it's the only thing wiggling in General Discussion.

 

Yeah, no offence to your DEX stat, Mr. Changer, but a computer is considerably less likely to misplace a decimal point than you are.

 

I completely agree. While I doubt that whatever automates my payments is likely to slip a decimal point, I prefer to maintaina more active role in my finances. The lessons I've learned from this experience are to be more careful when making my monthly payments and to doggedly follow up with any institution when significant funds are on the line.

Nah, you antagonize me, I antagonize you. It's not an ideal arrangement, but we make it work.

My bank calls me this morning just as I'm sitting down to a holiday lunch and connects to a conference call with my mortgage company. The mortgage company associate seems to have his scat together and rolls through how limited our options are for the scenario and the process for what he feels is the best option for us to take. The associate at my bank instills less confidence with her admissions of "I've never done that before" when prompted by the associate at my mortgage company for specific actions required on the bank's end. Nothing against her, because if somebody is unfamiliar with a procedure somebody is simply unfamiliar with a procedure and there is nothing to be done but adapt and get familiar with the procedure, but these people were probably the most competent and aware people I've spoken with during the course of this saga. If people this capable had been handling my issue at the very beginning, we would have never arrived at this step! In any case, it has been worked out between the bank and the mortgage company that nine mortgage payments are being wired to my account and should be available in 72 hours.

I've scheduled my next mortgage payment via my bank's BillPay service and double-checked the sum.

 

I waited the 72 hours and then some. I didn't check my bank accounts until this morning and lo and behold, no nine mortgage payments have been returned to me.

I call the bank to ask them what the hell us up. Wouldn't you know it, they don't have any idea. Why would they? Some agency outside of them has sent them money and they haven't received it. They cannot know why. Apparently it is my mortgage company's issue.

I call up the mortgage company to find out just what the hell is up. The associate tells me that my bank didn't recognize the account number supplied for the wire transfer. Thinking back to the conference call two Fridays ago, I recall how although an associate of my bank was on the phone with me and the associate from the mortgage company, the banking associate would not give the mortgage company my account number. Why would she? I'd only supplied my banking card number, PIN, mailing address, and the last four digits of my Social Security Number; one can't be too safe these days. To remedy this, I excused myself from the lunch this conference call was interrupting, charged upstairs to a PC, and logged into my bank account so I could view an image of a cashed check. While I'm sure the print on the check is highly legible to a machine, when compressed in the GIF format, a "5" is nearly indistinguishable from and "8" so I manage to supply an account number that is not my own. I do not know this, however, until today when I speak with an associate from the mortgage company. The wire transfer was refused by my bank because it did not recognize the account number. I was not made aware of this error until today because I called the mortgage company, and the note of the refused reimbursement was just added to my account today. Today. From an error that occurred six business days ago.

 

Sounds like you need glasses.

 

"Fuck" Versus "Foul"

No, I have thoroughly identified where the failings have occurred, and naturally they do not lie with me.

I realize it was my initial fuck-up that started this avalanche of incompetence, but I am amazed and disgusted at how EVERYBODY downstream of me somehow also manages to fuck up. I've reviewed the footage and have broken out the errors and penalties of the three parties involved.

• TheDavisChanger slips a decimal point. He's going to live to regret that one! (Fuck-ups: TDC - 1, Willis - 0, Mort - 0)
• TDC waits five days to notify Mort of mispayment. (FUs: TDC - 2, Willis - 0, Mort - 0)
• But Mort practically guarantees that he will cash the payment he is instructed not to cash anyway! (Technical Fuck-up on Mort for lacking a robust customer service model voids TDC's previous error).
  (FUs: TDC - 1, Willis - 0, Mort - 1)
• The check is cashed even though TDC directed Willis to render the check uncashable! (FUs: TDC - 1, Willis - 1, Mort - 1)
• TDC gives an incorrect account number to Mort in a conference call with Willis (FUs: TDC - 2, Willis - 1, Mort - 1)
• Because although Willis was present at the conference call, Willis refused to disclose the correct account number! (TFU: you're part of the goddamned bank.)
  (FUs: TDC - 1, Willis - 2, Mort - 1)
• Seven days after the wire transfer fails TDC discovers the error only because he calls Mort for a WTF update. (Mort can't notify TDC of the delay? TFU!)
  (FUs: TDC - 1, Willis - 2, Mort - 2)

I just checked my bank account and my funds have finally been returned, less the $15 goddamned wire transfer fee. Somehow I'm grateful because I suspect that the stop payment fee would have been greater.

Christ.

EDIT:
I fucked up the Subject of this post.
(Fuck-ups: TDC - 2, Willis - 2, Mort - 2)

 

A no-win draw then.

Oh wait, the bastards who sat on your funds for those extra days won.

I'm led to believe that upper-echelon bankers borrow funds from other banks for n days at a time, so waiting for a week before returning n thousand dollars may actually be deliberate.

I used to think I could digest any kind of maths if I tried, but financial maths hit the wall of my autism. It took me a lot of concentration to figure out why the maths involved isn't quite right, and I finally decided it's because it is deliberately obtuse. It's not real maths in the sense of describe-reality-as-concisely-as-possible, but a kind of smoke-screen-while-we-steal-your-shirt pseudo-maths.

Those guys will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.